God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America [Paperback]

Hanna Rosin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2008

Since 2000, America’s most ambitious young evangelicals have been making their way to Patrick Henry College, a small Christian school just outside the nation’s capital. Most of them are homeschoolers whose idealism and discipline put the average American teenager to shame. And God’s Harvard grooms these students to be the elite of tomorrow, dispatching them to the front lines of politics, entertainment, and science, to wage the battle to take back a godless nation. Hanna Rosin spent a year and a half embedded at the college, following the students from the campus to the White House, Congress, conservative think tanks, Hollywood, and other centers of influence. Her account captures this nerve center of the evangelical movement at a moment of maximum influence and also of crisis, as it struggles to avoid the temptations of modern life and still remake the world in its own image.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Envisioned by its founder as a "Christian equivalent of the Ivy League," Patrick Henry College positions itself as a training ground for God's cultural soldiers to take on the secular mainstream; at the seven-year-old Virginia school for evangelicals, religion and political journalist Rosin reports, girls are warned by e-mail if their bra strap is showing, dating requires parental permission and students fast forward through sex scenes in movies. Though they might seem out of touch, students here are as ambitious as any Ivy Leaguers, interning in the White House and Hollywood, volunteering on political campaigns and doggedly pursuing studies like baraminology (creationist biology). Having spent a year and a half immersed in the campus culture, Rosin weaves a deft and honest narrative of evangelical education, combining historical background (the roots of evangelism, the story of founder Michael Farris), close observation and skeptical wit. Among other students and faculty, Rosin introduces Derek, the fresh-faced, idealistic political volunteer; and Farahn, who gave up dancing for the Lord. Making it clear that the American evangelical population is growing in political and cultural influence, Rosin provides an illuminating, accessible guide to the beliefs, aspirations and ongoing challenges of its next generation.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Patrick Henry College, just outside the nation's capital, is a small school preparing Christian Fundamentalist youth to become the elite of the future, permeating politics and American culture to change what they see as an ungodly nation. Washington Post reporter Rosin spent a year and a half among the faithful, watching the efforts of school founder Michael Farris to mold the next generation of evangelicals. She follows the lives of students, nearly all of them previously homeschooled, as they cope with college life, the world of Washington politics, and questions about their faith and their futures. Farahn, a ballet dancer, is an attractive, somewhat cynical misfit, who struggles through the year. Daniel Noa is trying to reconcile his conservative persona at school with the greater tolerance of his hometown of Hollywood, where growing numbers of Christian filmmakers are making their mark. Elisa is a bright, earnest young woman, chafing at the expectations that she will curb her ambitions and devote herself to a future husband and children. A captivating look at struggles within the conservative movement. Bush, Vanessa --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (September 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156034999
• ISBN-13: 978-0156034999
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,149,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Putting Evangelicals in Congress October 6, 2007

By The Spinozanator VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Several intertwined stories:

*How several overly-religious, over-achieving youngsters cope with a new and unique overly-religious, over-achieving college.

*How these students decide where to draw the line when it comes to participation in today's seductive secular culture - with the help of prayer, a personal relationship with Jesus, and Patrick Henry College's conduct manual and "snitch" policy.

*How an attorney, who made a career out of representing the interests of home-schooling parents, opened an evangelical college designed to put high achieving home-schoolers on a career path leading to politics. Student volunteers are given time off to assist the Republicans during each election cycle. A huge number of them get positions assisting Republican Congressmen and Senators in Washington DC during their off time.

*How these kids have been taught since birth that God is on the side of the Republican Party.

Patrick Henry College must tweak a continuous balancing act to maintain their offense and defense against secularism. Founder and President Michael Farris would like PHC to be part of the movement that would return the United States to be the God-fearing society it believes the founding fathers intended. This means an education that enhances a working knowledge of and working relationship with the enemy. That knowledge, at times, enhances the inadvertent defection of some of their brightest stars to the dark side.

Robert Stacey, PhD, consistently was a role model and favored teacher at Patrick Henry.... Among other things, he caused students to question whether, for example, Bush's every move had been the correct one, and whether, in truth, all the founding fathers were as religious as these home-schoolers had always been taught. Jennifer Gruenke, PhD, taught biology. She didn't believe in evolution but she taught it - on the basis that you have to know the correct theory in order to honestly oppose it. She also taught alternatives - intelligent design and even a 10,000 year old earth inhabited by a naked lady and a snake, as portrayed in Genesis.

These instructors and several others are no longer at Patrick Henry. They resigned en mass when Farris tried to enforce a more Biblical code on their curriculum - caving in to complaints from home-schooling parents.

Not my cup of tea, nor is it the author's, who is a journalist specializing in religion and is a non-practicing Jew. In the hands of other authors, this book could have been a scathing indictment of a Taliban-like fundamentalist sinkhole - or it could have presented PHC to be a suger-coated nirvana-land, but she has done neither. For a year and a half she was granted freedom to the campus and to those who live and work there. She is open-mindedly empathetic, but realistic about them.

It appears PHC will be a significant force in the future, influencing politics and culture wherever they think they can. This is a very interesting, timely book and I recommend it. Read more ›

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars well-written but gives extreme examples March 21, 2011

By Booklover

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Rosin does a wonderful reporting job and writes eloquently on the culture she sought to understand. However, having worked at Patrick Henry College for a time, I found her examples too extreme and not typical of the students I met. She never gives a 'normal' example of students there, but instead focuses on the more peculiar types of students. This does make the book more entertaining to read. Her perception of the controversies among Christian circles is profound, and it would be helpful for Christians to read this book and see themselves from an outside perspective that is both respectful and insightful.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars God's "New" Harvard Looks Like God's "Old" Harvard May 5, 2008

By A. Tatusko

Format:Hardcover

In God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America Hanna Rosin, Washington Post correspondent, was embedded in the environment of the Patrick Henry College student for a year and reports what she witnessed and learned.

Patrick Henry College is a very small institution, but also newly founded under the clear authority of its president Michael Farris, a Christian homeschool advocate and clear supporter of the link between political conservativism and orthodox evangelical Christianity. The story she tells shows us remarkable resilience and fortitude of the students of this institution Farris can coined "God's Harvard". Indeed it's students will be among the elite of all secondary school graduates much less the creme of the crop among homeschooled teens. The student body which boasts a rather generous helping of homeschooled undergraduates alone supports any assertion that homseschooled teens can compete with the best and brightest of all high school graduates.

Rosin tells tales of highly competitive students who are in the throes of political training at Patrick Henry. these students have unprecedented access to Washington with a clear sense of mission and pride about their task to reform American government to be something in which God can exercise domain and rule. That God is not currently doing so is at the very heart of the curriculum. In any college, one would be thrilled to have such a critical mass of bright and passionate students and this is part of the picture that Rosin paints for us.

There is, of course, another side to the story. This side is the authoritarian nature of the administration with a special emphases on Michael Farris and Dean of Students Bob Wilson.... There are very clear limitations on behavior and dress along with unwritten expectations of the role of women along the lines of clear complementarianism. Infallibilism of Scripture is not only preached from the pulpit at mandatory chapel services, but it is a clear expectation to be integrated into all facets of the curriculum. And more than just integrated, but this view of Scripture should hold all other forms of knowledge as a contingency upon its truth. To wit, the biology program focuses on a rather odd anomaly in biology called baraminology, which is a taxonomic system that re-casts speciation in terms of what was likely to have been the case in the literal six day creation of Genesis (see Ch. 8, 183 ff.). History and politics are taught with the indubitable assumption that the founders intended to favor evangelical Christianity as the structure in which government and civility would be administered. So this is not just about abortion and gay rights. These are only symptomatic issues of a wider evangelical worldview that hold the structure of quite literally everything in different terms and under different standards of truth compared to even other evangelical colleges (Rosin points out differences with Wheaton College in a few key places such as science).

Finally, the ethical administration of the behavioral code is brought out in Rosin's stories of a few students that she followed intently. Chapter 7 "Den of Sin" (p. 167 ff.) recounts one such conflict in which one student informed the administration of behavior infractions of other students whom he had befriended.

"Someone was getting expelled. No, five people were getting expelled, or maybe three. A couple of them were Farahn's friends. Rumor was that the boys had been caught drinking, smoking, abusing prescription painkillers, and possibly cheating on exams. No wait, they had not been caught. They had been turned in by one of their roommates. He had written a long letter to the dean of students (p. 168)."

The problem here is not so much that students get caught and punished for such behaviors. The problem is that the institution made as part of its rules that students should hold each other accountable if they catch another breaking any rule to any degree. Rosin's tale shows that this has created among many of the students a culture of distrust and paranoia rather than one of moral fortitude.

Indeed, Rosin points out such details with the tone of a mother who feels bad for these children; that in spite of their brightness and passion in what they do, there is a stir of conflict that rages beneath the surface. The college's position is to use biblical infallibilism to hammer any such conflict into submission with perhaps a follow-through of a hug and even an "I love you" from the Dean. But with he influence of Tim LaHaye and other Christian Right conservatives who support Farris unflinchingly there is a clear pejorative tone to Rosin's narrative even in terms of the homseschooling environments from which many of these students came.

"Experimental communities almost always implode. One faction wants to hold on to the purest version of the mission while another begs for a little fresh air. The men fight for power, while trying to protect an image of unified authority. But eventually, their adoring subjects catch on" (p. 257).

For PHC, such an implosion was the resignation of four professors who did not support the same premises of Farris in their classrooms. Indeed, it is clear that for Farris, this version of "God's Harvard" hearkens back to the ante-bellum Harvard itself, perhaps more so of Yale. But this is even more radical in its understanding of the evangelical nature of government and the role of the student. This is an interesting and thought-provoking engagement of a new kind of evangelical college that seeks to dissociate itself from the controversies of Falwell and Robertson, but maintains a clear kinship in its very mission. Read more ›

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging, Humane Work of Cultural Anthropology February 21, 2008

By James J. Paul

Format:Hardcover

This is a very humane, sometimes amusing, occasionally sharp-eyed, often sympathetic look at a determined subculture.

It is not a chronological narrative but a series of episodes--detailed snapshots illuminating the lives of Patrick Henry students and faculty. Thankfully, Mrs. Rosin doesn't limit her focus to the campus itself, but shows these characters within larger frameworks--the home schooling movement, the ID movement, politicking, and Christian filmmaking.

You feel as if you know these characters--Farahn the (somewhat) rebellious student, fiercely determined PHC founder Tim Farris, good-hearted young Mr. Archer--in the round, as if they were old friends.

Mrs. Rosin's curiosity and open-minded humanity have given birth to an excellent book--perhaps a classic of cultural anthropology and sociology.

A must-read.

31 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting and Insightful Look at a Contemporary Phenomenon August 28, 2007

By Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

It probably should be mentioned at the outset that the term "Christian" as used in the context of this review refers to a particular brand of Protestant Christianity -- evangelical or fundamentalist -- which differs in many theological essentials from other Protestant Christian churches. Commonly, these believers are referred to as the "Christian Right" in contrast to members of the latter churches who often are considered "liberal" or "moderate." With that caveat in hand, then, let's begin.

I am pretty astute at keeping up on public affairs, especially regarding political and religious issues, so how I missed this important story I can't explain. Of course, it is always possible that I did hear some reference to Patrick Henry College and its special program somewhere along the way and simply let it pass by or didn't focus on it with any deliberate attention. That, if so, has now been rectified. Hanna Rosin, a veteran reporter who has covered religion and politics for many years, has, I think, done an excellent job of exploring the ins and outs of an evangelical Christian college, founded in 2000 by Christian activist Michael Farris, which is dedicated to the proposition that the future of America rests in the hands of a college-trained Christian elite which itself is dedicated to saving America from "secular humanism" or any variant thereof.

Rosin's book is titled "God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America." I might suggest an alternate title: "God's Military Academy." It seems to me that Patrick Henry College is much more than your usual, traditional liberal arts college; at the least it does not share many of the important features I am familiar with in my undergraduate experience.... I attended and graduated from a small, religious-run liberal arts college but it was dedicated to, among other things, Enlightenment values such as freedom of thought, free speech, tolerance of differing views, and the exploration of things secular, as well as sacred. My impression of Patrick Henry College from Rosin's description is somewhat at odds with my conception of a true liberal arts institution. Furthermore, by the end of the work, I had formed a picture of an institution preparing an "army of God," marching out onto a cultural battlefield to defeat a "worldly" and "permissive" enemy, intent on "saving" us from our social, personal, and political "wickedness." It seems to me that today that is a pretty ambitious mission.

The author spent around eighteen months within Patrick Henry College's surroundings, talking with its president, Michael Farris, interviewing students and faculty, interacting informally with both groups, socializing with some of them outside the campus environment, and even attending classes. The result is an interesting and insightful narrative about a contemporary phenomenon with which, I suspect, few Americans are actually acquainted: the training and nurturing of a young, dedicated, highly sophisticated, and militant cadre of college graduates for direct political involvement (including holding public office right up to the presidency itself) or occupying positions of influence and leadership within various professions in the arts and sciences, all in the pursuit of saving a nation from its currently "godless" path.

At Harvard, or Princeton, or Stanford, or at any one of the other thousands of colleges and universities in this nation of ours (including my own alma mater), the fact that many young students major in political science (as I did) or some other relevant discipline to prepare themselves for government work, public service, or elective office, would not come as a surprise to anyone. However, at Patrick Henry College, there is an additional element which makes this subject all the more interesting and, to some probably, worrisome: the intent to produce a generation that can bring about a fundamental and, above all, religious change in the governance and culture of America. The author writes that "They are the 'Joshua Generation,' as Farris likes to say, the first ones savvy enough to 'take back the land.'" Take back the land? Well, I find that somewhat worrisome myself.

Now, far be from me to take the position that Farris and his colleagues should cease and desist from their stated mission or tear down their college. This is a free country, after all, and all voices ought to be encouraged and welcomed. I have no problem with religion in the public square; I just don't want it to be running the public square. But that's the Enlightenment secularist in me speaking. That being so, I do think movements on a mission to narrow or censor public discourse or that potentially could "remake" the body politic into their own special (and, all too often, intolerant) image, especially those of a religious nature, need to be carefully analyzed, watched, and confronted. That, to me, is the real value of Hanna Rosin's book. She has examined, albeit with much understanding and kindness, a potential hazard to this nation's political structure and cultural framework.

As we have seen over the past twenty-five years or so, the so-called "Christian Right" has become a powerful force in American politics. For seven years now, a particular institution of higher learning -- Patrick Henry College -- has committed itself to becoming the academic evangelical training camp for the future leaders and power-brokers of this nation, as Rosin documents in her book. But there is somewhat of a conundrum here. How does one go about reforming an increasingly secularized and "permissive" society or culture, replacing it with one solidly planted on a traditional Bible-based Christian dogmatic and moral theology, without becoming intimately involved within the "worldly" community itself, thereby presenting to young "reformers" the risk of succumbing to the very temptations of the world that they desire to confront and eliminate? We've already seen a number of seasoned, highly influential evangelical leaders "fall from grace" over the past decades.

So, can the graduates of Patrick Henry College handle the task of converting, reforming, and transforming a "godless" culture once they are out of the protected environment of the academy? Only time will tell. Some clues, I think, may be deduced from the informal conversations which Rosin had with some of the students to which she became particularly close. At least I noticed some chinks in the religious armor of some of them. I'll leave it up to other readers to draw their own conclusions about that matter. All in all, "God's Harvard" is a compelling read and a valuable contribution to the public discourse surrounding the place of religion in American society and politics and the future role of evangelical Christianity within the secular marketplace. Highly recommended! Read more ›